The patent document U.S. Pat. No. 3,448,725 relates to an adjustable milking stall for dairy cows where the stall has a stationary rear wall adjacent to a milking station, and adjustable means either in the form of an adjustable front wall or an adjustable manger movable toward the rear wall to shorten the stall for cows of different length. Additionally, the width of the stall may be adjusted for cows of different width. These adjustments of the milking stall are performed manually in that they require an operator to perform actions in real-time. As it is stated in this document, the hydraulic cylinders, which control the movement of the manger, may be remotely controlled by an operator from a console in the milking pit.
A disadvantage with the solution presented in the document U.S. Pat. No. 3,448,725 is that it is labour-intensive, and consequently rather expensive, due to the fact that it requires manual actions performed by an operator in real-time.
The patent document EP-B1-0 432 148 relates to a milking location for an animal, comprising an enclosure formed by fences which can be opened for allowing the animal to enter the milking location on the tail-side or to leave the milking location on the head-side and closed to restrain the animal during milking, whereby the enclosure includes at the head-side a movably mounted front-fence which may be used as a feed trough and at the tail-side a back-fence, the milking location further comprising a set of milking cups movable relative to a fixed position of the enclosure and to be applied to the teats of the udder of the animal to be milked, a recognition device for automatic identification of the animal entered into the enclosure and control means for controlling the operation of the milking location, thereby making use of stored information and the identification of the animal by the recognition device. The back-fence is in a fixed position relative to the length of the enclosure and a feed trough near the front-fence is connected to a positioning device that is adapted to adjust the length of the enclosure between the back-fence and the front-fence and the feed trough in accordance with the length of the animal to be milked. The length of the enclosure is adapted to the known length of the animal stored in the control means.
A disadvantage with the solution presented in the document EP-B1-0 432 148 is that it requires a manual initiation of the system in order to thereafter make use of what is called historical data about the animals, i.e. the length of each animal. Another disadvantage is that it does not take into account that different animals can have different sizes, not only different lengths.